Issue #48: Thinking versus making

I find an increasing amount of my time is spent thinking through problems or solutions over making. This surprises me when we’re keen as designers to make minimum viable products and test out ideas.

I think the reason is that thinking about a problem is where we add value. Thinking about the smallest form of a solution or the approach to testing ideas out with users is valuable. With the Leading Design Conference still fresh in my mind, I think there will be a period in the near-future where teams won’t just be thinking of “we need a UX designer” to “which UX designer would be a good fit to helping us solve this problem.”

Considerations for 2025. David looks at the most important considerations for the future when designing for disappearing interfaces. Voice command interfaces are proving more and more mainstream, so here’s a good primer before you get designing.

“Hack Manchester is a 24-hour coding competition where teams of four people turn up to create a product that meets a brief, and present it, in just a day.” It’s great to see young minds at work, but furthermore, this is vital to educating children that if they can believe it, they can build it. Good job!

“Instagram influencers have long tried to hack the app to make money by putting "purchase link in bio” when they photograph something you can buy. The company has noticed, so now it’s making it.“ Really interesting to see how this, and Facebook’s marketplace feature resonate with users.

“Here’s our latest infographic with the key cart abandonment stats from the last quarter.” Really useful to pull out at meetings or share with colleagues. A new reason to abandon: “If in doubt, ‘Amazon’ it.”